Dark Eldar Talos With Balloon Pump! - Painted

Dark Eldar Talos Conversion

Greetings! After a thoroughly enjoyable journey I have managed to complete my fourth Dark Eldar Talos for the Corpsethief Claw formation. You may have seen my WIP updates as I progressed through the paint job on this chappie (which hopefully was interesting for ya all), and after a glorious Saturday where I managed to get both varnish coats done and finish the basing, I can now call him complete!

I had a vague idea of colour choices for him when I started, but this quickly changed as I worked through the standard base layers of flesh, red and metals (I always do these first as they are a constant throughout the army, and it gives me a good platform to start making the colour choices). As is usually the case I picked the largest area on the model for my first colour choice, as this will be the lynch pin that all the other colours work from, which in this instance was the vibrant Orange of his ragged skirt. I basecoated this and then went on to choose the blue as the next large colour, and the purple/pink secondary colours (which hopefully tie the disparate areas like the balloons in with bits on the model such as the foot armour plate, and pink hearts on the shoulder. I am really pleased with how these have all come out. Both the orange and blue are really vibrant and work very well together, with the other colours being subtle yet complimentary to the primary colour areas.

I enjoyed painting the skin, especially the infected flesh around the ports on his back, which I think look really effective. It was the first time I tried the bruised look, using washes and glazes to bend into the skin tone. There is always room to improve but for a first attempt I think it came out well and I am very chuffed with it. Looking back, one of the things I think I can improve on is the blending on the skin. I think the final highlights are a little harsh, and a few more layers blended up to the white would have looked more natural. I will work on this for the next one.

The pipes and poison star also came out really well. I painted lots of green stripes all around the pipes (with two different shades) and then glazed it multiple times until it all blended together and looks more subtle. I then painted all the little bubbles with white paint and gave it a final glaze with waywatchers green. The star was painted in the same way, but with swirls instead of stripes.

He is a worthy addition to my burgeoning Talos collection, and only 1 more to go before I can call the corpsethief claw complete. He makes me smile with the balloon pump on his foot, and the bright carnival theme to his clothing and armour, yet underneath is a brooding menace, accentuated by the harsh face and poison tubes all round his body.

NafNaf

PS. I have been playing around with my foldio 360 turntable to try and get some 360 shots of my models. Not had much success, as the lighting is not right, camera is slightly out of focus and my model is not central on the turntable. Still, have a click on the link to see what I am trying to do, and hopefully in the future I can get as decent 360 shots as I can the still ones above. (I also need to find a way to export the image rather than having to click on a link, but that is for another day :)

https://spinzam.com/shot/?idx=11860